Last weekend, 14 families in the East Calhoun neighborhood of Minneapolis spent some time getting dirty and helping out the environment.  What were they doing?  Planting their raingardens of course!  This is the first year that Metro Blooms and the East Calhoun Community Organization have partnered to bring raingardens to neighborhood residents, and we hope it won’t be the last.

During May, residents in East Calhoun had on-sites with Metro Blooms landscape designers to determine where on their property a raingarden would be able to capture the most runoff. Then, gardens were designed, plants were ordered, mulch was acquired and before we knew it the Conservation Corps of Minnesota and Iowa was excavating fourteen beautiful raingardens.  As planting day arrived, so did some pretty serious storms that knocked down trees, blew off shingles and even shattered some glass into one of the raingardens.  But have no fear!  Those East Calhoun residents are hardy and they arrived on planting day (many without cars to carry their plants home because of all the downed trees) and they planted those raingardens!

So what good are these 14 new raingardens really going to do?  Well, after I usedsome handy dandy equations I can tell you precisely what they’ll do (approximately of course).  These raingardens will capture 182,910 gallons of stormwater each year that would otherwise be running off the property and into the storm drain.  They’ll clean that water, allow it to infiltrate into the soil, and provide native habitat for wildlife.  Good job, East Calhoun.  We look forward to working with you again!